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My heart surged, and I looked behind him, searching for the light of a blaze. I almost missed Gahn Buroudei’s next words, spoken quietly to Gahn Taliok.
“He may be the most hopeless of us all.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Stephanie
“Well, they look likethey’re off somewhere important, don’t they?”
At Fiona’s words, I stopped trying to tear a tough chunk of dakrival meat off the bone. She and I were sitting at the evening fire, along with Tilly and Nasrin. The four of us were all on the list to head up the new mountain settlement, and we’d been inseparable ever since Chapman had announced it – talking about what we’d do in the mountains. What we’d find. How we’d help.
Other human women were also seated, eating and chatting, in little groups among the Sea Sand people circling the fire. A few Bitter Sea men were present – like Tok, who hadn’t left Taylor’s side since he’d returned from the Deep Sky mission. He hulked beside his mate like some kind of golden gargoyle, his sharp eyes never straying from her smiling face.
“Who?” I asked, wiping the back of my hand over my mouth. I turned to follow Fiona’s gaze, as did Tilly and Nasrin.
It took me a moment to figure out what she meant. But once my eyes registered it, there was no way I could be mistaken about what she’d commented on.
The Sea Sand Gahns, all five of them, were striding purposefully away from the settlement, towards the open sands. Once they passed beyond the main grouping of tents, I lost sight of them.
The Sea Sand people had evidently noticed the Gahns’ movements, too. The warriors who’d been seated at the fire stood, and the women called their children back to their sides with clicking tongues.
A frisson of dark fear ran under my skin.
The Gahns were spotted together fairly regularly as they strategized. But seeing them all walking swiftly away from the camp felt like cause for alarm.
“They haven’t given any orders. The warriors are all jumping up but they’ve not been told to prepare for anything,” Nasrin noted, a note of concern lacing her Australian accent.
Fiona turned to me, her expression grim.
“Do you think...?”
“Does she think what?” cut in Tilly, leaning forward. Her German accent was a contrast to Nasrin’s words a moment ago. The firelight licked up one side of her face, making her deep brown skin gleam. That same light glimmered in coils along the tightly-wound spirals of curly hair tied in a puff on the top of her head.
Fiona and I glanced at each other. As two of the women who matched the description given by Chapman, we’d been warned.
Warned that we could be his mate.
